Part of 1. Cwestiynau i’r Gweinidog Cyfiawnder Cymdeithasol – Senedd Cymru am 1:42 pm ar 29 Mawrth 2023.
Thank you very much, Joyce Watson. It is important that we remind our colleagues in the Welsh Conservatives about what is happening in Wales as to childcare. We're already investing heavily to expand childcare and early years provision to all two-year-olds in Wales—a commitment in the co-operation agreement. We're investing more than £100 million in childcare in Wales a year already. Our childcare offer provides 30 hours of funded childcare a week for up to 48 weeks a year for three and four-year-olds. Parents in training and education get help with childcare costs, and we're already rolling out high-quality childcare to two-year-olds across Wales through our Flying Start programme. And funded childcare is supporting, as Joyce Watson said—it's supporting—more parents back to work, but not with the force of sanctions and conditionality that are forcing people, as the Child Poverty Action Group said, into lower paid jobs. We could spend too much time on this, but, at the moment, England is offering 30 hours of childcare for working parents for 38 weeks of the year, 15 hours funded childcare for some children aged two and three, and, of course, the planned changes in England will not take full effect for at least another two years.